Konstantin Mitgutsch is the founder of Playful Solutions, a Viennese agency that creates playful solutions for real world problems. Konstantin is also an Affiliate Researcher at the MIT Game Lab (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and a lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. He also serves as Gaming Director of the Red Bull Mind Gamers project, and explores novel forms of using game design as a tool for personal development with Superpower Discovery. Konstantin received his PhD in education science and media education at the University of Vienna education and has published books on purposeful game design, learning and technology.

Maria Schneider is an engineer and scientist with university degrees in Physics, Electrical Engineering and Bio-Medical Engineering. She is co-founder and CEO of Dynofit, Inc., a startup Biotech company that develops tools to promote improved health outcomes and lower costs for physical rehabilitation by supporting patients to understand and effectively implement their recovery protocols. Schneider has worked at NASA and Bell Labs and has served as the principal investigator for a National Institute of Health grant developing smart orthotics for pediatrics. Her passion for helping patients with physical recovery stems from helping her son thrive in spite of his cerebral palsy and using technology to help him and others live their best lives. Schneider lives in Dallas with her husband, son and dogs and volunteers with a non-profit to help low income communities.

Lindsay Grace is an Associate Professor at American University and founding director of the American University Game Lab and Studio. His game designs have received awards from the Games for Change Festival, Meaningful Play, Advances in Computer Entertainment and Gamescape. Grace has published more than 50 papers, articles and book chapters on games since 2009. His creative work has been selected for showcase in more than eight countries and twelve states. He has given talks at the Game Developer's Conference (GDC), SXSW, Games for Change Festival/Tribeca Film Festival, the Boston Festival of Independent Games and many others. Current academic liaison and former vice president for the Global Game Jam™, Grace also served on the board for the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA). He has curated game events in Europe and the US, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum's SAAM arcade. At American University Game Studio, he has worked with a client portfolio of more than $800,000 USD in gamification contracts for clients that include ETS, the World Bank and others.

Jenn McNamara, Vice President of Serious Games at BreakAway Games, is a recognized global leader in the Serious Games industry. She is also an adjunct professor of learning game design at both the NYU Tandon School of Engineering and Harrisburg University. McNamara spent her early career working with advanced technologies focused on human machine interactions to improve the way we work, learn, and live. She's researched topics ranging from artificial intelligence and cognitive agent driven decision support and training systems through early augmented cognition applications to more traditional modeling and simulation projects. McNamara has focused the last 15 years on the use of games for serious purposes.

Christoph Becker is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto, where he leads the Digital Curation Institute; and a Senior Scientist at the Vienna University of Technology in Austria. After completing his Doctorate in Computer Science in Vienna in 2010 with a thesis on decision making in digital preservation, he led a research program on scalable decision support for digital preservation as part of the large-scale EUfunded project SCAPE: Scalable Preservation Environments, which he co-developed with an international consortium of universities, memory organizations, industrial research and commercial partners. He is Principal Investigator of the project BenchmarkDP and has published widely in the fields of digital libraries, digital curation, and software systems. As co-founder of www.sustainabilitydesign.org, he is advocating a new perspective on software systems design.

His research is funded by the Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF), the National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Ontario Ministry of Research, Innovation and Science, and the Connaught Fund.

Wolfgang Gatterbauer is an Assistant Professor in the Tepper School of Business and, by courtesy, in the Computer Science Department of Carnegie Mellon University. His current research focuses on scalable approaches to performing inference over uncertain data, and is supported by a Career award from the National Science Foundation. Prior to joining CMU, he was a Post-Doc in the Database group at University of Washington. In earlier times, he won a Bronze medal at the International Physics Olympiad, worked in the steam turbine development department of ABB Alstom Power, and in the German office of McKinsey & Company.

Maria Christina (MC) Binz-Scharf is associate professor of management in the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership at City College of the City University of New York (CUNY), where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in organizational behavior, social entrepreneurship, and information and technology management. Her research examines how individuals search for and share knowledge through networks in order to accomplish work. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the US Department of Education, among others, her studies have been published in a wide variety of journals, including American Review of Public Administration, Cancer, and American Behavioral Scientist. Her research has also been featured in national and international press outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, Inc., Hispanic Outlook, Wiener Zeitung, and Tribun Jogja (Indonesia). Currently, she is writing a book on the future of work in the networked economy. Beyond her scholarly pursuits, MC is active as a social justice advocate for gender equality and the advancement of underserved populations in the workplace. Before joining the faculty at City College in 2004, MC was a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. Prior to her postdoc at Harvard, she cofounded and managed the Center of Excellence for Electronic Government at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, and worked at the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium. MC holds a Ph.D. in business economics from the University of St. Gallen and a B.A. from Bocconi University in Milan, Italy. When she’s not observing people at work or advocating for the underserved, MC enjoys skiing, yoga, spending time with her husband and kids, learning about art, and exploring the world.

Katja Schechtner holds a dual appointment with the MIT Media Lab in Boston, Massachusetts, and the Asian Development Bank in Manila, Philippines to create and build cities based on culturally sensitive use of data and technology. Currently she is also a visiting professor at the University of Applied Arts and the University of Technology in Vienna, Austria.

Katja is a consultant and advisor to the EU Commission, national governments, global start-ups, and venture capital funds and has published widely, including two books on Urban Data and Accountability Technologies. She previously headed the Dynamic Transportation Systems group at AIT. Katja places special emphasis on discussing the potentials and perils of Big Data with the general public as well as with experts. Therefore, she exhibits her work at international art and science venues and is frequently invited to give talks. Most recently, the government of Moscow hosted a speaking tour across Russia in which Katja discussed the challenges of “Data & the City”; and her work "Home Is, Where Your Phone Is" was presented at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2016. Katja has served as a curator at Ars Electronica, the Technical Museum, and the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna, the Seoul Biennale for Architecture and Urbanism, and VivaManila.

Dominik Reisner is currently working at the OSTA as staigiaire from the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economy where he has been working since 2008. His field of activity focuses predominantly on the public university sector, especially concerning intellectual capital reports, strategic plans as well as performance agreements.

Dominik holds a law degree from the University of Vienna and is currently working on his doctoral dissertation.

Robin Tim Weis serves as a project manager in OSTA in Washington, DC. Previously, he served as a policy analyst at the International Narcotics Control Board in the United Nations. As a former Europe correspondent for FrumForum.com and foreign commercial assistant for the US Embassy in Brussels, he has been a strong proponent of bolstering transatlantic relations. You can follow Robin on Twitter @RobinTimWeis.

Keeping in line with our mission of "Bridging Research and Innovation between Austria and North America", Bridges focuses on the dynamic elements of the Austrian and European, American and Canadian science, innovation and technology policy. Visit Bridges to stay in touch with the latest developments in transatlantic science, innovation and technology policy and how they affect our lives.